Architect // Interaction Designer // Fabricator

Nutrio – Final Project

In the last three classes before our final presentation at UNICEF HQ, we were really able to shape our idea and develop a potential product that we feel could be a useful asset for redistributors to help grocery stores, restaurants, homes deal with excess foods, and efficiently support charities and undernourished communities.

Three weeks ago, we

defined a problem statement: “The problem of inequality of food access affects people all over the world. How might we better redistribute wasted food from events, and local farms for low-income individuals in order to ensure access and education to healthy nutrition.”

We were asked to find some poignant data points to support our research:
Global food waste is a major problem. In two minutes:

15,210 tonnes of food will be produced

10,267 tonnes of food will be consumed

4,943 tonnes of food will be wasted (that’s close to ONE-THIRD)

The average meal weighs 0.5 kg. ~5000 tonnes of wasted food could feed 10 Million people.

… losses incurred by food producers from this waste will exceed of $2.8 million USD globally by the time you reach the last line in this post. (Source: World Food Clock – we should fine their source(s) as well)

Global Undernourishment ~842,000,000 (12% of world population) (Source: World Food Clock – we should find their source(s) as well)

We estimate that the per capita food waste by consumers in Europe and North-America is

95-115 kg/year, while this figure in sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia is only 6-11 kg/year. (source: FAO – dated study (2010-11))
In medium- and high-income countries food is to a significant extent wasted at the consumption stage, meaning that it is discarded even if it is still suitable for human consumption.

In low-income countries food is lost mostly during the early and middle stages of the food supply chain; much less food is wasted at the consumer level. (source: FAO – dated study (2010-11))

Interviews:

After some great conversations with people in the food industry, narrowed our problem statement down to: How might we streamline data access for food insecure communities between regions to reduce overall waste and improve nutrition?

And developed our proposal to be the following: An open ledger, that is platform diagnostic, of excess food within a region which individuals and organizations can contribute to and charities have access to appropriately disseminate the food within their communities.

We pitched this idea in class to our fellow classmates, teachers and guest critics with this initial deck.

We received some great feedback from this initial pitch and ultimately finalized our idea.

In the end we decided to propose a product called Nutrio (http://nutrio.world/): Using emerging technology, blockchain, to track and properly redistribute excess food.